Jack McEarchern did it all at Silver Springs

Jack McEarchern Jr. talks about the days he used to dive at the Silver Springs Attraction in Silver Springs on Thursday, June 13, 2013.

Jacqui Janetzko/Star-Banner

By Marian RizzoCorrespondent

Published: Thursday, June 20, 2013 at 5:04 p.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, June 20, 2013 at 5:04 p.m.

Editor's Note: This is the first in a periodic series about the people whose lives are as much a part of the Silver Springs tradition as the crystal waters that bubble up from the earth.

John "Jack" McEarchern Jr. has lost track of how many times he was killed, maimed or speared during filming of Lloyd Bridges' "Sea Hunt" TV series at Silver Springs.

"I was a good guy, bad guy, dead guy, whatever they needed," McEarchern said. "One time, I played the bad guy and rolled a rock on him (Bridges). Then, I turned around and played the good guy and saved him.

"In another episode, they needed a dead guy on the bottom," he said. "They zoomed in on me to start the show. It got so cold, I couldn't stop shaking, so they had to rewrite the script to say, ‘He was in his death throes.' The best thing was getting out after eight hours under water. Seventy-two degrees will suck the heat right out of you."

"He was scared to death," he said. "When that flashbulb went off, he came out of that water like somebody'd shot at him. But he became one of the most knowledgeable salvage divers in the country. He had to. He'd meet with these crowds, and he knew somebody was going to ask him questions. He said, ‘I have to have the answers.' "

***

Like so many of the people who contributed to the colorful history of Silver Springs, McEarchern was born and bred here and spent much of his youth immersed in the springs' chilly waters.

The oldest of three boys, he attended elementary schools in Fairfield, Reddick and Ocala, and graduated from Ocala High School in 1949. He learned to swim underwater long before he donned scuba gear and worked as a lifeguard at Silver Springs when the park had a public beach.

McEarchern's photo album features shots of movie stars who came to Silver Springs, photos of himself diving, fishing and posing for ads, and two honorary certificates — one for the "Royal & Mysterious Order of the Silver Springs Aqua-Snobs" and the other a 1957 "Certificate of Unique Achievement" that also lists the names of former employee Ricou Browning and pioneering underwater photographer Bruce Mozert.

While leafing through the album, McEarchern paused at a photo of his wife, Joyce, and he teared up. Married on Sept. 24, 1949, they were together for more than 50 years.

"We were two 19-year-olds, madly in love," he said. "I let her be 19 for one month, then I married her. I didn't want folks to say I was robbing the cradle."

The McEarcherns had two sons, John III and Ben, and a daughter, Rita Carolyn. Joyce died following a stroke 11 years ago.

His son John III was 14 when he participated in the making of a "Mike and the Mermaid" TV special, making him the youngest scuba diving stunt person ever at Silver Springs, McEarchern said.

For John III, his relationship with his father had many high points, whether under the sea or on land.

"He made sure us two boys had a good upbringing out in nature and in the woods," he said. "We hunted and fished a lot. He said to always work hard and be aware of nature. My dad's a hoot. I've had a million heart attacks in my life, and they was all from him. He'd sneak up behind ya and, ‘Gotcha!' It was a good childhood. We had fun."

Aside from his work at Silver Springs park, McEarchern served as the fire chief of Silver Springs and worked in maintenance at Six Gun Territory and Rainbow Springs.

***

McEarchern learned scuba diving from the late Newt Perry, best known as a stand-in for Johnny Weissmuller in the "Tarzan" films and for developing the Weeki Wachee Springs attraction.

McEarchern was first called to Silver Springs by his friend, the late Bill Ray, who was head of public relations at the time. Then an installer with the Florida Telephone Co., McEarchern was asked to hook up an underwater phone for a project of WMOP radio.

"Vern Arnette was the announcer," McEarchern said. "He called UPS and told them he was under water. They called him a liar."

McEarchern later worked in public relations at Silver Springs for 10 years. His jobs ranged from scuba diving to fixing broken things to serving sodas in the commissary. He also posed for magazine ads and billboards, helped catch alligators, "noodled" bass with his bare hands, leaped off a barge to explore underwater springs and rubbed elbows with the stars — Arlene Francis, Hugh Downs and Gregory Peck, among them.

Movie-making wasn't always glamorous, but it was always interesting. He recalled a time when a movie crew needed a fox for a scene, McEarchern said they found a dead one on the road and then posed him the way they wanted.

When he wasn't helping pose road-kill, McEarchern was wrangling larger, livelier predators during alligator roundups with Browning and the public relations team.

"We captured an alligator in the forest and needed to move him," McEarchern recalled. "We tied him up, rolled him up in a tarp, loaded him up in Bruce Mozert's station wagon and toted him home."

When the University of Florida needed an Albert the Alligator mascot for a Gators football rally, McEarchern helped transport the beast to Gainesville.

"I got a rope around his neck," he said. "Don Shaw came up on his back and slammed his mouth shut, then I went up there and put a rope around it. We put plywood in the back of a pickup truck and threw the gator in there. When we got to the university's park, we cut the rope and his mouth went open. We walked him around the park and people scattered. In 30 seconds we had that gator all to ourselves."

In a phone interview from his home near Fort Lauderdale, Browning talked about the team's relocation of nuisance alligators.

"We were hired to capture alligators in the lakes in St. Petersburg," Browning said. "We got a whole bunch of us together to go down and take them away from peoples' homes. They probably took 'em back to the Springs. Ross Allen was there at the time."

Browning said he knew McEarchern both on the job and socially.

"The main thing I remember was Jack was a kind of jack-of-all-trades," Browning said. "He could do almost anything mechanically. Everything we did, he would be involved in any of the physical activities of the project, whatever it might be. He was extremely helpful in every project we did at Silver Springs, publicity wise, and he helped build things and fix things."

David Faison, who has been a glass-bottom boat driver for 55 years, recalled McEarchern's penchant for fishing.

"He was the baddest man," Faison said with a grin. "He caught all the fish. No wonder we got no fish in there. He was an outside guy, liked to fish and hunt. That was his cup of tea."

***

McEarchern has seen transformational changes at Silver Springs. He was there when the only ride was the famed glass-bottom boats and the only sidewalk followed the river along its north side.

In the early 1960s, the park's owners sold it to the American Broadcasting Company, ushering in the corporate era at Silver Springs that continues to this day.

Each corporate owner expanded the offerings at the park, grafting rides and other attractions onto its natural-Florida theme.

ABC added Wild Waters water park in 1978; Florida Leisure Acquisition Corp. opened Jeep Safari and Lost River Voyage and added the Garlits car museum; and Ogden Entertainment debuted World of Bears, Kids Ahoy! Playland and the Twister flume, along with a host of news shows and exhibits.

But many of McEarchern's fondest memories involve the springs themselves.

He recalls the rhesus monkeys that S. Colonel Tooey, owner of the Jungle cruise, helped bring to the park. The boat captains, he said, would toss bananas and bread to them until, in recent years, the monkeys became too aggressive and had to be moved.

"One boat captain was trying to get a monkey to take a banana. That big ol' bull jumped on him and tore up his chest," he said. "Another time, a female came on there, and them boys just gave her that boat."

He also recalled with mixed emotions the separate beaches at the park that marked the segregation-era.

While he never agreed with segregation, he says the beaches were a major draw for locals and provided years of good memories for visitors. There was one beach for the whites and one for the blacks "at Paradise Park, down where the glass bottom boats turn around," he said. "They had their own beauty shows and parties and everything down there."

When ABC took over, they closed down the beaches and made other changes, McEarchern said.

"Everything was running fine till then," he said. "They took over and fired everybody. They let Bill Ray go. As far as I'm concerned, that was a big mistake. He was responsible for getting ‘Sea Hunt' and getting all our diving equipment, wet suits, swimming gear, everything. He got Mercury Motors' advertising. Bill Ray was PR. He didn't wait for them to come to us. He went to them and talked them into coming to Silver Springs.

<p><i>Editor's Note: This is the first in a periodic series about the people whose lives are as much a part of the Silver Springs tradition as the crystal waters that bubble up from the earth.</i></p><p>John "Jack" McEarchern Jr. has lost track of how many times he was killed, maimed or speared during filming of Lloyd Bridges' "Sea Hunt" TV series at Silver Springs.</p><p>"I was a good guy, bad guy, dead guy, whatever they needed," McEarchern said. "One time, I played the bad guy and rolled a rock on him (Bridges). Then, I turned around and played the good guy and saved him.</p><p>"In another episode, they needed a dead guy on the bottom," he said. "They zoomed in on me to start the show. It got so cold, I couldn't stop shaking, so they had to rewrite the script to say, 'He was in his death throes.' The best thing was getting out after eight hours under water. Seventy-two degrees will suck the heat right out of you."</p><p>The 155 episodes, which aired from 1958 to 1961, starred Bridges as salvage diver Mike Nelson. McEarchern chuckled when recalling Bridges' first underwater photo shoot.</p><p>"He was scared to death," he said. "When that flashbulb went off, he came out of that water like somebody'd shot at him. But he became one of the most knowledgeable salvage divers in the country. He had to. He'd meet with these crowds, and he knew somebody was going to ask him questions. He said, 'I have to have the answers.' "</p><p><center>***</center></p><p>Like so many of the people who contributed to the colorful history of Silver Springs, McEarchern was born and bred here and spent much of his youth immersed in the springs' chilly waters.</p><p>The oldest of three boys, he attended elementary schools in Fairfield, Reddick and Ocala, and graduated from Ocala High School in 1949. He learned to swim underwater long before he donned scuba gear and worked as a lifeguard at Silver Springs when the park had a public beach.</p><p>McEarchern's photo album features shots of movie stars who came to Silver Springs, photos of himself diving, fishing and posing for ads, and two honorary certificates — one for the "Royal & Mysterious Order of the Silver Springs Aqua-Snobs" and the other a 1957 "Certificate of Unique Achievement" that also lists the names of former employee Ricou Browning and pioneering underwater photographer Bruce Mozert.</p><p>While leafing through the album, McEarchern paused at a photo of his wife, Joyce, and he teared up. Married on Sept. 24, 1949, they were together for more than 50 years.</p><p>"We were two 19-year-olds, madly in love," he said. "I let her be 19 for one month, then I married her. I didn't want folks to say I was robbing the cradle."</p><p>The McEarcherns had two sons, John III and Ben, and a daughter, Rita Carolyn. Joyce died following a stroke 11 years ago.</p><p>His son John III was 14 when he participated in the making of a "Mike and the Mermaid" TV special, making him the youngest scuba diving stunt person ever at Silver Springs, McEarchern said.</p><p>For John III, his relationship with his father had many high points, whether under the sea or on land.</p><p>"He made sure us two boys had a good upbringing out in nature and in the woods," he said. "We hunted and fished a lot. He said to always work hard and be aware of nature. My dad's a hoot. I've had a million heart attacks in my life, and they was all from him. He'd sneak up behind ya and, 'Gotcha!' It was a good childhood. We had fun."</p><p>Aside from his work at Silver Springs park, McEarchern served as the fire chief of Silver Springs and worked in maintenance at Six Gun Territory and Rainbow Springs.</p><p><center>***</center></p><p>McEarchern learned scuba diving from the late Newt Perry, best known as a stand-in for Johnny Weissmuller in the "Tarzan" films and for developing the Weeki Wachee Springs attraction.</p><p>McEarchern was first called to Silver Springs by his friend, the late Bill Ray, who was head of public relations at the time. Then an installer with the Florida Telephone Co., McEarchern was asked to hook up an underwater phone for a project of WMOP radio.</p><p>"Vern Arnette was the announcer," McEarchern said. "He called UPS and told them he was under water. They called him a liar."</p><p>McEarchern later worked in public relations at Silver Springs for 10 years. His jobs ranged from scuba diving to fixing broken things to serving sodas in the commissary. He also posed for magazine ads and billboards, helped catch alligators, "noodled" bass with his bare hands, leaped off a barge to explore underwater springs and rubbed elbows with the stars — Arlene Francis, Hugh Downs and Gregory Peck, among them.</p><p>Movie-making wasn't always glamorous, but it was always interesting. He recalled a time when a movie crew needed a fox for a scene, McEarchern said they found a dead one on the road and then posed him the way they wanted.</p><p>When he wasn't helping pose road-kill, McEarchern was wrangling larger, livelier predators during alligator roundups with Browning and the public relations team.</p><p>"We captured an alligator in the forest and needed to move him," McEarchern recalled. "We tied him up, rolled him up in a tarp, loaded him up in Bruce Mozert's station wagon and toted him home."</p><p>When the University of Florida needed an Albert the Alligator mascot for a Gators football rally, McEarchern helped transport the beast to Gainesville.</p><p>"I got a rope around his neck," he said. "Don Shaw came up on his back and slammed his mouth shut, then I went up there and put a rope around it. We put plywood in the back of a pickup truck and threw the gator in there. When we got to the university's park, we cut the rope and his mouth went open. We walked him around the park and people scattered. In 30 seconds we had that gator all to ourselves."</p><p>In a phone interview from his home near Fort Lauderdale, Browning talked about the team's relocation of nuisance alligators.</p><p>"We were hired to capture alligators in the lakes in St. Petersburg," Browning said. "We got a whole bunch of us together to go down and take them away from peoples' homes. They probably took 'em back to the Springs. Ross Allen was there at the time."</p><p>Browning said he knew McEarchern both on the job and socially.</p><p>"The main thing I remember was Jack was a kind of jack-of-all-trades," Browning said. "He could do almost anything mechanically. Everything we did, he would be involved in any of the physical activities of the project, whatever it might be. He was extremely helpful in every project we did at Silver Springs, publicity wise, and he helped build things and fix things."</p><p>David Faison, who has been a glass-bottom boat driver for 55 years, recalled McEarchern's penchant for fishing.</p><p>"He was the baddest man," Faison said with a grin. "He caught all the fish. No wonder we got no fish in there. He was an outside guy, liked to fish and hunt. That was his cup of tea."</p><p><center>***</center></p><p>McEarchern has seen transformational changes at Silver Springs. He was there when the only ride was the famed glass-bottom boats and the only sidewalk followed the river along its north side.</p><p>In the early 1960s, the park's owners sold it to the American Broadcasting Company, ushering in the corporate era at Silver Springs that continues to this day.</p><p>Each corporate owner expanded the offerings at the park, grafting rides and other attractions onto its natural-Florida theme.</p><p>ABC added Wild Waters water park in 1978; Florida Leisure Acquisition Corp. opened Jeep Safari and Lost River Voyage and added the Garlits car museum; and Ogden Entertainment debuted World of Bears, Kids Ahoy! Playland and the Twister flume, along with a host of news shows and exhibits.</p><p>But many of McEarchern's fondest memories involve the springs themselves.</p><p>He recalls the rhesus monkeys that S. Colonel Tooey, owner of the Jungle cruise, helped bring to the park. The boat captains, he said, would toss bananas and bread to them until, in recent years, the monkeys became too aggressive and had to be moved.</p><p>"One boat captain was trying to get a monkey to take a banana. That big ol' bull jumped on him and tore up his chest," he said. "Another time, a female came on there, and them boys just gave her that boat."</p><p>He also recalled with mixed emotions the separate beaches at the park that marked the segregation-era.</p><p>While he never agreed with segregation, he says the beaches were a major draw for locals and provided years of good memories for visitors. There was one beach for the whites and one for the blacks "at Paradise Park, down where the glass bottom boats turn around," he said. "They had their own beauty shows and parties and everything down there."</p><p>When ABC took over, they closed down the beaches and made other changes, McEarchern said.</p><p>"Everything was running fine till then," he said. "They took over and fired everybody. They let Bill Ray go. As far as I'm concerned, that was a big mistake. He was responsible for getting 'Sea Hunt' and getting all our diving equipment, wet suits, swimming gear, everything. He got Mercury Motors' advertising. Bill Ray was PR. He didn't wait for them to come to us. He went to them and talked them into coming to Silver Springs.</p><p>"If somebody asked me to rename Silver Springs, I'd call it Bill Blue Ray's Florida Silver Springs," McEarchern said. "He made it. The rest of us just worked there."</p>